If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Well I am new. Why i have decided to hang well i guess i got lucky and stumbled on to it.
I love to hunt and be in the woods and I was looking for a easy way to camp. Im getting older and laying on the cold ground isnt fun no more. I find that i can hang almost anywhere and it is easy and i feel safer. I would post more often but im to busy reading and looking at everyones rigs and you guys have already answerd alot of my questions in older post.
I hope to bring something to the table after i get more time under my belt..

Why I want to be a Hanger:

After being "stranded" for about 6 year prior to lower back surgery, a full hip replacement and losing 82 lbs, I had to find something to do with all this new found energy. Hiking and camping were first on the list and since my wife's idea of "roughing it" is a 3 star and my boys (20 & 17) do not want to go out as often as I do, I started looking into solo camping. The only problem left was that all the gear I had was from my scouting days with the boys and was not suited for soloing. One day while searching through camping videos on You-tube I saw this guy solo-camping with a hammock and the light clicked on. I have my first solo w/HH hammock planned for this weekend at Colorado Bend State Park here in Texas. Wish me luck and any advice is welcomed.

One of my hobbies is cycle touring. As my usual steed is a unicycle, space is a bit of a premium. I can't remember how I found it, but my first peek at hammocking was the HH website. A few months later, they had their "buy one, get a scout and snake skins free" offer on, so I bit the bullet and haven't looked back.

Having found this forum, I've bought some material and dusted off the sewing machine. Some of the patterns and ideas on here are really inspiring. I can only see my experiences getting better.

srgt rock's website.... i was researhing ul backpacking and just stumbled over(well more like clothes lined by) it. i have been wanting to get one for two yrs and just now finally got one. the gearskin is next.

A few years ago, I was googling for images of treesits, since I had done that work before, and it was downright miserable, cold and a bunch of other adjectives that have no place on this forum. I wanted to find some kind of alternative. I came across this image:

And this one:

I had never heard of, or seen such a thing before, especially for overnight camping let alone so high in the trees. I was intrigued and struck the way someone might fall in love. I had to do this, it looked like more fun.

A few months later I bought a hammock on a whim at a corner store that was selling them as a comparison to their "These handcrafted fairtrade hammocks made by brazilians with their native fabric are superior to these synthetic ones". It's an ENO, pink and orange. I paid $40 for it. It sat in my room unused for many more months and I slowly collected the rest of the accessories (which I now know by this forum are called treehuggers) to hang. I hanged in my backyard for a few hours on warm days to use the laptop, but that was it.

As the recession hit, I found myself getting evicted without the cash to pay rent/bills and was soon homeless. I didn't have a tent, but I did have that hammock and a bicycle. So got some panniers for the bike and hit the road figuring I'd travel for a while and try to make do with that.

Having a hammock as a homeless person is probably the best idea ever. It took up 1/4th the space of a conventional tent/padding, etc. I could easily fit it in my panniers with room to spare, and if I hanged waay up in a tree, when the cops came to cite the homeless people in tents below, I was safely tucked away, hidden from view. No one ever thought to check the trees and it started to catch on that hammocks and tree living was the way to go. A tent on the ground is an obvious eyesore, but a hammock in a tree is nonobtrusive.

I'm still traveling and couchsufing, and I'm still spending many nights in a hammock. More people are inclined to host me when I don't squash the grass with a tent and my hammock is hidden in the background under a tarp. It's like I'm not even there.

Blame it on te-wa...
After backpacking regularly with te-wa (my husband) over 4 years ago, when it was all heavy gear and tents, then taking a break to raise baby te-was, I have now started to get back out on the trails with him and am learning the new light weight snug and comfy ways of the ewoks.

1\ Shug! I stumbled across his hammocking videos on youtube and thought it might be worth looking into,
2\ Fate. A week later I bumped into Hitchhiking who put me onto Wentworth who sold me his Hennessy Explorer.

My friends still thinks it's a laugh, but we went out a few weeks ago and it was about 2*C. Even with my completely rubbish DIY UQ, I slept like a baby. My mates woke up tired and cold after a poor nightes sleep.